In 2021, El Salvador shocked the world when President Nayib Bukele made Bitcoin (BTC) its legal tender, giving the cryptocurrency the same status as the US dollar, the official currency of Central America.
Since then, El Salvador has constructed a Bitcoin reserve worth approximately $630 million, established one of the most advanced cryptocurrency regulatory frameworks in the world, and issued $1 billion in Bitcoin-backed bonds. He promised to do so, and even persuaded stablecoin giant Tether to relocate its headquarters. country.
But one of the country’s most beneficial successes is its extensive Bitcoin-centric education program, according to Stacey Herbert, director of the El Salvador Bitcoin Office.
“Bitcoin country needs Bitcoin engineers, right? We’re producing them, and the manufacturing process takes a long time, but it creates a nice positive feedback loop,” Herbert said. He said this in an interview with CoinDesk. “They graduate, they get jobs, and they all become friends. … You can feel a tech atmosphere emerging in San Salvador.”
The idea, Herbert said, is that when large companies like Tether and Bitfinex move their headquarters or open offices in El Salvador, they have no trouble finding the highly educated workforce they need to run their operations. It is said that it can be done.
“Many students are finding ample opportunity to work in these companies because there is such a demand (for companies),” Herbert said. The high quality of Salvadoran Bitcoin education is causing more companies to consider El Salvador as a jurisdiction to set up shop, which in turn is motivating more students to study Bitcoin. she continued.
President Bukele has advocated a “renaissance vision.” Singapore 2.0. Florence 2.0. How do you get there? We need to have a strategy,” Herbert said. “We need a talent pool. We need smart, optimistic, bright people. And we have it here in El Salvador.”
Herbert is a long-time Bitcoiner and was one of the first to talk about cryptocurrencies on international television in 2010. She came to El Salvador with her husband Max Kaiser in 2021, shortly after Bitcoin became legal tender, and almost immediately spun up Bitcoin. CUBO+ is an educational program to train Bitcoin developers in Japan. Bukele then selected her to run the Bitcoin Office, which was officially established in November 2022.
The Bitcoin Authority advises on policy and legislation and markets El Salvador’s Bitcoin initiative. However, one of the first things Herbert did after his appointment was to work on bringing Bitcoin education to high schools. The program initially targeted only five institutions, but is now being rolled out at a national level.
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Students will be shown how to set up Bitcoin and Lightning Network nodes, as well as the technical details behind ASICs (specialized computers used specifically to generate Bitcoin). Herbert said the ASIC lessons in particular have been enthusiastically received. “They were able to grab onto something, and it really helped them understand in a deeper way.”
But Bitcoin lessons aren’t just limited to high school students. CUBO+ runs a course that explains the theory, history, and philosophy of Bitcoin, which Herbert described as a “very intensive bootcamp.” The program, which attracts approximately 100 to 125 applicants and earns college credit for their participation, ultimately selects 21 students with the best technical skills to further their education. Some students have been flown to Tuscany and Lugano to participate in Bitcoin workshops.
“(In the first year) 100 percent of our students found jobs,” Herbert said. “Some earn close to $4,000 per month. As you know, the average starting salary for a computer science graduate in El Salvador in 2023 was $600 per month.”
Nearly 80,000 civil servants have also taken the three-day Bitcoin certification course. And another program themed around artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics will be rolled out in schools for grades 1 through 9. “We are laying the foundation on which we can build a great economy,” Herbert said. “It’s not just the technical details of Bitcoin. It’s a shift in thinking to understand what sovereignty and independence mean.”
CUBO+ is already paying off on a personal level for Herbert. She has three employees working for her at the Bitcoin office, all of whom graduated from the program before going on to work for the government.
The Salvadoran government recently decided to scale back its Bitcoin wallets and make acceptance of Bitcoin payments voluntary (rather than mandatory) in the private sector as part of a new $3.5 billion agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Agreed. Herbert said that although the Bitcoin Authority was not involved in the negotiations, in her view the concessions made by El Salvador do not change anything. “The priority is always the people. So whatever is best for the people, while maintaining a strategy to implement the people’s sovereignty and vision (let’s do).”
Still, since the IMF agreement was announced, El Salvador has made some changes to its Bitcoin acquisition strategy. In addition to purchasing one Bitcoin per day, the government purchased an additional 10 Bitcoins spread over three days. Asked whether this change in pattern was a response to the IMF agreement, Herbert said: “We’ll have to ask the president directly. … (But) he’s ready to accelerate. Donald Trump will be inaugurated in a few days and the campaign is starting. Follow us around the world. There’s competition.”
For Herbert, El Salvador cemented its place in the history books from the moment it created the first national strategic Bitcoin reserve. If the United States were to establish its own reserve, it would simply follow in the footsteps of Latin American countries. So this is a competition, and El Salvador is not necessarily the underdog. According to Herbert, other countries need to work to catch up to El Salvador’s efforts, which are beginning to bear fruit.
The Central American country has never experienced peace and prosperity, at least in living memory, an El Salvadoran lawyer recently told Herbert. While the United States was enjoying a golden age of disco music and Hollywood in the 1970s, El Salvador was experiencing social unrest that would eventually lead to the Salvadoran Civil War, and a struggle to deal with the rise of violent gangs in the 1990s. The country has become weaker. .
But Bukele’s leadership, combined with Bitcoin’s efforts, is completely changing the way people think, Herbert said. Suddenly, the future looks exciting.
“I think El Salvador deserves some good times ahead, and here they are,” Herbert said. “We are just beginning the good times.”
